Trio Builds Consumer-Goods Empire

By

Anupreeta Das and

Emily Glazer

Updated Dec. 24, 2012 4:29 p.m. ET

When Caribou Coffee Co. agreed to be sold this week for $340 million, the coffeehouse operator entered the fold of a little-known company that three deal guys are building into a consumer-products powerhouse.

The men—Peter Harf, Bart Becht and Olivier Goudet—manage the money of one of Germany's wealthiest families, the Reimann family. But rather than stick the funds in stocks, bonds or real-estate, as many family-money managers do,...